Rebecca

I've been trying to keep my New Year's Resolutions and I've been doing pretty good so far. Of course it has only been a couple of days. Because I plan to read the Bible in one year, I've been reading in Genesis. Last night I read the story about how Rebecca was chosen to be Isaac's wife. I began to wonder what I would have done in her place. It's a normal day and I'm/she was doing her normal chores, which included getting water from the well. A stranger asks for water and she noticed his camels needed water as well. Being kind and hospitable she offers to water the camels. It makes since, the man has no pot to get the water for the camels him self. The next thing she knows the man is giving her jewelry and saying she is to marry his master. I don't know about you, but I would have freaked out. Some strange man is telling me I'm going to marry somebody I have never met.

Rebecca runs home, tells her family, and they send her off with the man. Now I'm sure there are a lot of cultural aspects to all of this story, but I would not have joined a strange man on a journey to marry a man I had never met. Being the good Norwegian that I am, I would have become stubborn and refused to leave with him. He would have to take me kicking and screaming. But not Rebecca, her family asks her if she will go and she says yes. I wonder what she was thinking? Was she afraid? Apprehensive? Nervous? What was going on in her mind the whole trip back to Isaac? The trip would have lasted at least a couple of days if not weeks? Her strength and courage to leave her family and marry an unknown man amazes me. Did God speak to her before all of this to make it easier, or was she just following cultural expectations for a young women? What ever the case, Rebecca did something I couldn't imagine doing.